PoseMaster for DAZ Studio

Comments

do not recall the pose exactly, but I think it was from the Casual Actions for M4 set by IronMan13 that is here at DAZ.

Unable, now, to duplicate the difficulty.

Hi evilded (never thought I'd say that aloud, shudder ;-))

Thanks for letting me know. I have Casual Actions but its in my downloaded-yet-to-install list (another shudder). I'll take a look at those when I get through that list, but if you find anything in the meantime that doesn't work, let me know please.

I've gone through a few folders manually and transferred some M4 poses to genesis.

I can see the dsa and png files in those subdirectories.

But after scanning known directories for new files, they don't show up inside DAZ Studio (though the newly created subfolder itself shows up - but no files appear within)

If I select genesis, then do file>Merge and select the .dsa file manually, the pose applies and looks fine.

I'm using DAZ 4.5.0.137

Any idea what could be happening or how to fix it?

Also, do you have any idea when DAZ is going to fix their coding so that you can automate the batch transfer instead of having to make some selections for every pose? The batch transfer will be incredibly useful once that's automated, but right now, the hassle of having to sit at the computer and make a few clicks for every pose makes it impractical to do a mass update/changeover for use with genesis.

I've gone through a few folders manually and transferred some M4 poses to genesis.

I can see the dsa and png files in those subdirectories.

But after scanning known directories for new files, they don't show up inside DAZ Studio (though the newly created subfolder itself shows up - but no files appear within)

If I select genesis, then do file>Merge and select the .dsa file manually, the pose applies and looks fine.

I'm using DAZ 4.5.0.137

Any idea what could be happening or how to fix it?

Hi Mosk

The only reason I can think of for this to happen, is if you're putting the files in what DAZ Studio sees as a Poser content folder. In that case, adding a dummy PZ2 file with the same name allows the DSA to show up in Studio. Richard Haseltine had a script for doing this - I'll see if I can track it down.

You could also try to save the transferred poses to your Studio folder - then they really should show up when you scan.

Also, do you have any idea when DAZ is going to fix their coding so that you can automate the batch transfer instead of having to make some selections for every pose? The batch transfer will be incredibly useful once that's automated, but right now, the hassle of having to sit at the computer and make a few clicks for every pose makes it impractical to do a mass update/changeover for use with genesis.

Believe me, I totally understand. The interface I used for PoseMaster in DS4.0 has been deprecated in 4.5, which means we're stuck with the current batch script until PoseMaster is upgraded to the new DS4.5 interface and format. I don't know yet whether we will have the same limitations in the new format, as I need to study and test the interface thoroughly before I can upgrade PoseMaster. Removing the batch limitation is the first thing on my upgrade list :-)

All failed test cases seem to be concerned with scale issues. I use DAZ 4.5 Pro, 64b.

Someone has an idea what's going wrong?

Thanks a lot and kind regards

Hi Oso

Thanks for buying the product. The node scale tests started failing with DS4.5 due to a change in the way DS handles scaling. There is no problem with the above because 99% of cases you will use PoseMaster for will be unaffected. Therefore I decided to not release an urgent patch, and fix the above scaling issue with a few other things such as using the DUF file format and dropping the dialog popup during batch conversions (I hope this is possible in DS4.5).

So you should have no problem using the tool, so have fun! If you get stuck on anything please let me know.

Cridgit, I purchased Posemaster recently, and have found it really useful.

One thing I wanted to suggest for your forthcoming update, though: if it's at all possible, could you stick a robust Stop/Cancel button in the Batch Convert option? I sent it to work on a directory with mixed M4/V4 poses, and when I realized what I'd done, all I could do was to hit Cancel on the Studio pose convert window, or else let it complete.

(The number of clicks to get through all. 40. poses. wasn't that much more, so I wound up letting it go. Mind, the results were both hilarious and instructive. I'd never realized that the rigging between M4 and V4 shoulders was so different, for example. It makes sense, of course; I'd just never thought about it until I was looking at the poses in action, just to see how the conversion had worked, and thinking, "You know, male shoulders really don't do that. And also, ow.")

I'm also hoping that 4.5 will let you more fully automate/script the pose process. I've got a few directories with something like 100 poses in a package, and I just look at those and think, "I'll wait until I need one, use that, and hope nobody explodes."

Cridgit, I purchased Posemaster recently, and have found it really useful.

One thing I wanted to suggest for your forthcoming update, though: if it's at all possible, could you stick a robust Stop/Cancel button in the Batch Convert option? I sent it to work on a directory with mixed M4/V4 poses, and when I realized what I'd done, all I could do was to hit Cancel on the Studio pose convert window, or else let it complete.

(The number of clicks to get through all. 40. poses. wasn't that much more, so I wound up letting it go. Mind, the results were both hilarious and instructive. I'd never realized that the rigging between M4 and V4 shoulders was so different, for example. It makes sense, of course; I'd just never thought about it until I was looking at the poses in action, just to see how the conversion had worked, and thinking, "You know, male shoulders really don't do that. And also, ow.")

I'm also hoping that 4.5 will let you more fully automate/script the pose process. I've got a few directories with something like 100 poses in a package, and I just look at those and think, "I'll wait until I need one, use that, and hope nobody explodes."

Hi vwrangler

Thank you and I'm glad you're enjoying it. That's a good suggestion and funny enough it wasn't on my list.

Not to be pushy, I hope, but one other question/request: Is there any way to get Posemaster to remember where you were, or to point it at the Pose directory as a starting point? It didn't look like there was anywhere in PosemasterSettings.DAT or Default.PSR to tell it where to start. For some odd reason, mine keeps starting out in the Reality Add-ons folder. Is there a line I can add to the settings file to tell it, "Start here, then end here", and then do some finer navigation based on those starting points?

Not to be pushy, I hope, but one other question/request: Is there any way to get Posemaster to remember where you were, or to point it at the Pose directory as a starting point? It didn't look like there was anywhere in PosemasterSettings.DAT or Default.PSR to tell it where to start. For some odd reason, mine keeps starting out in the Reality Add-ons folder. Is there a line I can add to the settings file to tell it, "Start here, then end here", and then do some finer navigation based on those starting points?

No issue at all. Please ask - the answer will either be yes or no :-)

The reason it starts in your Reality folder is that must be the first listed content folder. I wrote the code to save the last used directory, but somehow that didn't get saved to the file. When PoseMaster cannot find the last used directory, it defaults to the first listed content folder.

Anyways, this has been fixed now - thank you for bringing it to my attention. And see next post.

I've been busy updating PoseMaster as follows:
- Remember last source/target folder for batch conversion.
- Added cancel button to batch conversion.
- Added support for DS 4.5 DUF format for batch conversion (now fully automated without the dialog popup).
- Added several configuration settings to disable the above features (if you don't have DS 4.5 or want things to work as before).
- Fixed the scaling test failures (due to changes in how DS 4.5 handles scaling).
- Several other minor tweaks and fixes.

One of the requests was to filter the offset poses and skeleton maps to the selected figures. I have explored this extensively and written the code to do so, but I'm reluctant to release this feature. As with everything, there are tradeoffs to be made, and after having developed and tested this feature, I feel the benefits do not sufficeintly exceed the drawbacks. I'd like to share my findings and invite some feedback before finalizing the decision.

The first screenshot below shows the new filtering at work - offset poses and skeleton maps filtered to M4 (source) and Genesis (target). However, there are 2 drawbacks to the filtering. Firstly, I need to scan each file and match it against both source and target figures leading to a a noticable performance impact. Secondly, I can only match offset poses and skeleton maps containing the root figure. There could be many cases where perfectly valid offset poses and skeleton maps are filtered out as there is simply no way they can be matched to the figures.

Given that the purpose of the filtering is to simplify things for the user by displaying a shorter list of files, I don't believe there is a strong enough argument for introducing the above limitations. Selecting the correct offset pose and skeleton map is already quite simple (the user just has to become acquainted with the recommended namign convention). The screenshot below shows the unfiltered display (including the PoseMaster People Pack). As you can see, it is quite straightforward to select Genesis M4 Zero Pose and Genesis from M4 when transferring to Genesis from M4.

Please share your feedback with me, as I'd like to confirm whether you're comfortable with my proposal to not include the filtering feature.

One of the requests was to filter the offset poses and skeleton maps to the selected figures. I have explored this extensively and written the code to do so, but I'm reluctant to release this feature. As with everything, there are tradeoffs to be made, and after having developed and tested this feature, I feel the benefits do not sufficeintly exceed the drawbacks. I'd like to share my findings and invite some feedback before finalizing the decision.

So the idea is that, based on which figure is selected, Posemaster would scan both figures in the scene and automatically realize, for example, "Since Genesis is selected, Genesis is the target and M4/V4 is the source," automatically pick the seemingly correct settings, but also lock out all the other settings?

I think the issue may be whether or not you have the Posemaster People Pack. With the limited choices that come with Posemaster by itself, no, the filtering wouldn't be worth it. If you've got the people pack, however, I can see how that list might feel like a bit much to search through.

Would it be possible to make the filter merely preselect the apparently correct choice while letting you select another option if that turns out to be wrong, instead of filtering out all other options so they can't even be seen? Does that make any notable difference to the performance hit?

I don't fee particularly dogmatic about it either way; I can see the benefits of both approaches. Filtering with the People Pack makes the process a bit less intimidating; not-filtering makes Studio not slow to a crawl, and it has issues with that with some functions already. Not bothered by NOT including it, anyway.

I've managed to find a solution I'm quite happy with. Rather than filtering the selection based on the existing PoseMaster UI, I've made some small UI changes which will help you more easily select the offset poses/skeleton maps without limiting PoseMaster's flexibility.

As you can see from the screenshot below, I have now added a file browse button [...] with which you can select the files from your file system rather than the drop-down lists of before.

The advantage of this approach is that you can now organize your files into folder that will help you more easily find what you need. For example, you might want to have People and Animal as the first level (assuming I will be releasing the People Pack and Animal Pack sometime soon). Below People you could organize all your Genesis files into a Genesis folder and all your M4 files into an M4 folder.

Say I'm transferring an A3 pose to Genesis, I'd be able to browse to my People/Genesis folder and pick the Genesis A3 Zero Pose.PSR (offset file) and Genesis from A3.SKL (skeleton map) and click Accept to transfer the pose. Super easy!

Hopefully this approach improves the usability of the UI, gives you more control over how to organize your files and avoids filtering reducing the flexibility of what you can do with PoseMaster.

Is there a way with pose master to copy the pose from the left hand to the right hand within the same figure?

Thanks

Hi Jorge

Yes you can do this with the Symmetry function in DAZ Studio, which is why it was not included in PoseMaster.

Select the source bone, e.g. left hand, then in the Parameters menu choose Symmetry. Choose Selected nodes, Recursive propagation, Left to Right direction and Leave Alone trunk nodes. That should copy the left hand pose to the right hand.

On the People Pack store page, in the description itt says: "...all the DAZ human figures including generation 2...", but in the What's Included & Features, the only generation 2 figures mentioned are "Stephanie, Millenium Girls and Millenium Boys". Are Genesis to/from Michael and Victoria included? (M2 and V2 being the same as Michael and Victoria as far as posing and pose conversions go as they are just Michael and Victoria with some added morphs.)

On the People Pack store page, in the description itt says: "...all the DAZ human figures including generation 2...", but in the What's Included & Features, the only generation 2 figures mentioned are "Stephanie, Millenium Girls and Millenium Boys". Are Genesis to/from Michael and Victoria included? (M2 and V2 being the same as Michael and Victoria as far as posing and pose conversions go as they are just Michael and Victoria with some added morphs.)

Hi David

That is correct, there is a popup image that shows the supported figures. Michael 1 and Victoria 1 are not included because I hadn't expected anybody would need pose transfers for gen 1, and I hadn't included M2 or V2 simply because I couldn't find them in the store. I assumed the Michael and Victoria figures had evolved from V1 to V3 (I haven't been around that long).

On the People Pack store page, in the description itt says: "...all the DAZ human figures including generation 2...", but in the What's Included & Features, the only generation 2 figures mentioned are "Stephanie, Millenium Girls and Millenium Boys". Are Genesis to/from Michael and Victoria included? (M2 and V2 being the same as Michael and Victoria as far as posing and pose conversions go as they are just Michael and Victoria with some added morphs.)

Hi David

That is correct, there is a popup image that shows the supported figures. Michael 1 and Victoria 1 are not included because I hadn't expected anybody would need pose transfers for gen 1, and I hadn't included M2 or V2 simply because I couldn't find them in the store. I assumed the Michael and Victoria figures had evolved from V1 to V3 (I haven't been around that long).

Michael and Victoria (now M1 and V1, but didn't originally have numbers) were the original figures. Unlike gen3 figures onward, they shared nothing with each other - they were completely different meshes from each other, Victoria's mesh (coming first) was designed only to have polys in the right place for typical 'female' morphs, like big hips, big breasts, tiny waist. Micahel's was designed quite differently to have polys in the right place for muscles. They have quite different rigs, as well as proportions, and do not take each other's poses at all well.

Michael 2 and Victoria 2 were not new figures at all. The only differences between M1 and M2, aand V1 and V2 were that M2 and V2 came with assorted body and head morphs, whereas V1 and M1 only came with some expression morphs. As they are the same figures with regards, to mesh and rig, there is no difference between poses for m1 and m2, and between poses for V1 and V2. Do one and you have done both.

Stephanie (which came along with M2 and V2, so there is just 'Stephanie', then later Steph petite 3: there's no Stephanie 1 and Stephanie 2) was something a bit different, and the relationship between her and Victoria 1/2 is quite different from the difference between S3 and V3, S4 and V4 and S5 and V5. As I said above, Michael had a mesh with polys arranged for muscle morphs, but Victoria didn't. When DAZ found there was a desire for a female figure that could have muscles, they caame up with Stephanie. Stephanie is Michael 1/2's mesh, reshaped to be the size and proportions of Victoria 1/2, and using Victoria 1/2's rig. So she's not a smaller girl. like S3, 4 and 5 - she's the same size and shape as Victoria 1 and 2. But because she uses a reshaped michael mesh, she has the polys for muscle morphs, which she caame with. The result is that Stephanie uses Victoria 1 or 2 poses, and Victoria 1 or 2 clothes (leaving aside that the clothes may not support the Stephanie morphs), but she can't use Victoria 1 or 2 textures ot morphs (but rather can use M2's maps or morphs). So whereas the Steph Vickie relationship since Steph Petitie 3 has been that Steph is the little girl, with th original Steph she was as tall as Vickie and was the I-can-turn-into-She-Hulk girl.

In fact, Stephanie, using reshaped Michael 1/2 mesh, is the beginning of the unimesh idea, which then went forward with V3 and M3 using the same mesh as each other. Stephanie actually has the kind of relationship with Michael 1 and 2 that V3 later had with M3, whereas V1/V2 didn't have that kind of relationship with M1/M2 at all.

V3 and M3 were the product of a completely new unimesh, with completely new rigs. They are in no way simple developments from Stephanie and M1/M2 (let alone V1/V2) moved to V3/M3. V3 and M3 are quite different. V1/V2, M1/M2 and Stephanie all have buttock body parts between the hip and thighs, for instance. And everyone had to learn a new way of posing. With V1/V2/M1/M2/Steph, for example, to put the arms up one had to leave the collars alone and just use the shldrs or Bad Things happened. With V3/M3, and then even more with S3/D3 one had to learn to split rotations between collar and shldr.

Anyway, bottom line is that some of us (like me) have a LOT of V1/V2/Steph and M1/M2 poses still in our runtimes, and I still sometimes want them. They do NOT apply well to gen 3 figures, or gen 4 figures, or Genesis without conversion, especially as the body parts do not correspond 1 to 1. I batch processed quite a few to both gen 3 and gen 4 with Puppet Master Biped. But it always remains that a single conversion is better than a chain, so converting straight to Genesis (which I can't use Puppet Master Biped for, as it won't work in a Poser above 8, which won't load Genesis) would be better than using PoseMaster to convert gen3 or 4 conversions.

Actually, I have belatedly realised that you have only one thing missing, You have listed the original Stephanie, and as explained above Stephanie uses the same rig as Victoria 1 and Victoria 2, so your Stephanie files are also the right files for V1 and V2 - you should perhaps just ammend the descriptions and file names to reflect that they are the Victoria 1/Victoria 2/Stephanie files, not just the Stephanie files.

But you are definitely missing Michael 1/Michael 2 (remembering that's just one conversions set as Michael 1 and 2 are the same figure and take the same poses - the only difference is that Michael 2 has body and head morphs that the otherwise identical Michael 1 does not).

To me, if you are going to say on the product page that the files in the product 'enable poses to be transferred between all the DAZ human figures including generation 2, generation 3, generation 4 and Genesis' (my emphasis), then you need to declare that Victoria 2 (and therefore V1) is covered through the Stephanie files, and you do need to include files for Michael 2 (and therefore Michael 1).

Thank you for the history - that's most complete explanation I've come across on the evolution of the DAZ figures.

Good news that Stephanie will cover V1/V2, and I would be happy to add Michael 2 if you can provide me with a link to where I can purchased / download the figure. As I mentioned above I didn't include V2 or M2 because I don't have those figures and wasn't able to obtain them. The DAZ store link to M2 doesn't work: http://www.daz3d.com/shop/michael-2-0/

I can't quite figure out from your post whether you're suggesting I need to modify the product page or whether you'd like to be able to transfer M2 poses. I won't be able to help in the latter case because I don't have the figure and cannot obtain it.

Just bought the Pose Master and it's recent extension yesterday and started to "noob" with it by transfering some V4 poses to my genesis characters.

It's really usefull and acurate, now most of V4 poses work perfectly with Gen, maybe need to check a little more on the foot area but only tried it a few minutes.

Now, i will enjoy the next 4 days (vacation) to discover more of its capabilities and increase my skills with it

Big thanks for you, Cridgit

Hi scal

Thank you for your purchases and I'm very glad you have 4 days to play with it now. I suggest you try mixing and matching poses in addition to the pose transfer capabilities, as you can have a lot of fun with that.

Hey cridgit - Do you know if your update ever made it into the store? I've been holding off on doing some stuff until that automated/batch processing got worked out. But will re-download once that's available. Or do you know what version number we would see if we have the updated copy?

Thanks. And can't wait till that animal pack comes out. (Actually, I can and will wait. Just letting you know I'm excited to see it. (Especially that Charger to Millennium horse and vice versa if you get inspired :)

Hey cridgit - Do you know if your update ever made it into the store? I've been holding off on doing some stuff until that automated/batch processing got worked out. But will re-download once that's available. Or do you know what version number we would see if we have the updated copy?

Thanks. And can't wait till that animal pack comes out. (Actually, I can and will wait. Just letting you know I'm excited to see it. (Especially that Charger to Millennium horse and vice versa if you get inspired :)

Hi Mosk

Update is almost almost with us. Let me say that I know a guy who says he knows a guy who may have downloaded the test installers today and may or may not have found something that worked fine or needed fixing which could mean it might possibly be in the store sooner or later. It'll be version 1.5 but I'll definitely announce once it lands.

The animal pack will be a month or two, but I'll look at your Charger to MilHorse request when I get a weekend open - haven't forgotten :-)

Just went through the steps you outlined, but I'm still getting an Error "Failed to load script file" when I try to run the test script (or the initializer which I tried afterward to see if that would make a difference)

Don't know if it would matter, but I never removed the custom menu items for posemaster tha I'd added after the first install. Don't know if that could mess things up in any way

We need to figure out if the problem is in the PoseMaster scripts or in DAZ Studio's script interface.
1. Open My Library/Scripts/cridgit/PoseMaster/PoseMasterSettings.DAT and change "debug" to "yes".
2. Open Studio then go to Help/Troubleshooting/View Log File.
3. Select all and delete, then save and close the log file.
4. Now re-run the PoseMaster test script and re-open the log file and see what errors it gives.
5. If PoseMaster is starting then the log will tell us where the problem is, but if we're not seeing the PoseMaster debug logs then the problem is in Studio.